Power-less

I went out for a ride on Monday to enjoy the weather, and well the power-tap wasn't agreeing. Possibly cause it's 4 1/2 years old? Literally the rear hub froze solid on me. I'm dropping it off and the GBC and let them rebuild the hub or it may need whole new axle. If it's anything excessive, buh-bye. My road bike is essentially used for training and it's showing it's wear. The durace (yah i know it's dura-ace, but its fun to say dur-rachi) is 5 + years old and the thousands of miles on the salty roads of upstate NY winters have me basically working with a front brake, and a "kick-shift" front der. I'll ride her till she dies.

In the meantime the paragon is fully set-up to handle all the necessary duties for road and off-road riding. I may never go back to the road bike if the ergomo returns. I may even end up with one of these. All depends, but most likely will. So in the meantime it's down to some Perceived exertion and manual TSS.

This weekend kicks off the Rochester Giros Spring Training Series. Guess who won't be showing up as you need a GVCC membership? $20 to race, plus another $60 for GVCC membership, plus $150 UCI license????? And it's now on the west side of Rochester, ya F that. I'll get better training on my own time rather than the 2.5 hours spent in the car.

Looks like a nice day out there, better get back to work so I can take a long lunch and sneak a few hours in today....

Oh Almost Forgot!! NYSERS site is now live and running!!

Currently playing in iTunes: Star Of Bethlehem by Angels & Airwaves

Rainy Day...

So I headed out for the giro today, was running a little bit behind and I wanted to ride there. No big deal, I had erin drive me to the other side of town. From there I would roll out and everything would be chill. Got to Park Ave with a few minutes to spare. They apparently were doing a demo event with Cannondale and Specialized. I milled around and gabbed with the reps a little.



Rolled out and headed out to the course. There were a few off the front, but otherwise everything was chill and relatively easy paced. An attack came in the usual spot over by Parish hill, I jumped with the group as usual and my wheel came out of the dropouts. So I pulled off to the side and fixed er up. Looked up and the group was stretched out single-file blowing people out the back left and right. Freakin yay, I gave chase for about 30 minutes picking up stragglers, but no dice. I wasn't going to regroup. At least it gave me a chance to throwdown and do some threshold work. As I hit 251 it started sprinkling so I headed home. The closer I got the harder it started to rain. I picked up the pace as I was getting pretty cold fast. Got home as it was really coming down and jumped in for a nice hot shower.



I made some changes on the site (again) not visible, but hopefully there should be no more problems for you people still stuck in the dark ages and using IE. I had to remove a javascript file that was causing problems, especially when you clicked around. Seriously though? Get Firefox! Also fixed the problem with the slideshow from the other day not working out.



Looking forward to tomorrow; should be a good one!

Course Creator

I just came across this a few moments ago and it looks really cool. It's called Course Creator. Just sign up for an account and right away you can start mapping out distances, elevation, and if you have a garmin gps you can get waypoints for your ride. This looks real cool and I'll be playing around with it a bunch for sure.



Ol' man winter looks to possibly be coming back tonight and tomorrow ; Really sucks as all the snow right now is pretty much gone. It's been real cold overnight so I'm hoping to hop over to dryer rd and maybe get a mt. bike ride in this evening before the snow comes. As far as tomorrow goes, I'm probably going to have to suck it up and do a little ski time and trainer time. I hope by Sunday they can get the roads cleared back up and I can head out for the gvcc giro.



I'm sure a few people are caught up in this weekend's training dilemma, How do I train and still celebrate St. Patty's Day?? Well don't have an answer for that one. Check back Monday for a wrap-up and see how I rolled. Will I be good or bad??



Back to work....

Sunday's Epic

This past sunday was a killer ride down around Keuka Lake with Brandon and Casey. Temps were a little cool as compared to the previous day during the GVCC Giro. We departed late morning for a nice cruise up and down every hill between Penn Yan and Hammondsport. Cruised up a few brutal climbs early, 364, Yoder, Sid Vicious, etc. My legs were still a little cooked from the day before and each one of us fought some demons that day. Lets just say that it was damn good to get back to Lloyds especially after fighting the brutal headwind the whole way home.



2 days later I can't lay down a good recap so you'll just have to look at the pictures instead.





For some odd reason you might have to click hide/show to the far right in order to see them???



Right now its 60 and sunny out while I'm sitting here at work, ahhhh! I have family plans afterwards so it looks like I'm going to have to pull off a night road ride and then tomorrow morning is the usual meet up with the gbc crew for the wednesday ride

First Hard Efforts of the Season Down

Today was my normal kick-off to the racing season with the start of the GVCC Giro's. As usual it brings everyone out for a day of racing, catching up with old friends, and good training efforts. And generally it means the end of the indoor season!!

We were greeted with excellent conditions for the day, and this brought out a good number of riders. As is usual we have a little roll-out to the course and then the racing kickstarts. A break went early and the pack let the 2 riders have a little bit of a leash but they were reeled in over by Parish hil.l Soon as they were caught the mandatory Shickluna attack was launched and that got the pack a little antsy. We suffered quite a bit along the backside of the course as everyone gave chase and there was a brutally strong wind. As we made our way off the larger loop we were greeted by the local sheriff, flashing lights and all. Apparently, a few people had been complaining about us taking up too much off the road. After a brief reprimand racing was restarted. Sitting around for a few minutes really took the life out of my legs and it took me a few minutes of suffering to get back up to speed. Just prior to rolling across the line for the 1 lap to go a break of 4 went up the road. I saw the break, saw it had the right combination and hesitated. I tried to bridge, but it was futile they were gone and I was left begging for scraps. The break stayed away to the end, but their games of cat and mouse almost go them caught at the line.



Overall I was pretty satisfied with my form. I've done basically zero training above threshold specifically, so it was a little bit of a shock to the system. Hopefully mixing in these next few weeks of good efforts with some long aerobic rides (see my previous post about tomorrow!) will be just what the doctor ordered for the upcoming season!

Listening to the prayer from the album "A Weekend in The City" by Bloc Party

Technorati Tags: GVCC, Racing, road cycling

Car trumps bike...everytime

For the first time ever, I was hit by a car on my bike. Luckily nothing major, no bike problems, no injuries and nothing really to report other than a little soreness of my right knuckles.



This past Saturday, weather was decent (mid 30's and windy) and it was time to get out for a nice long ride. I headed out of town via my usual route of down Main St and then head South via 444. It has some nice gradual climbs that are perfect for getting warmed up on. I was in the left hand turning lane behind the 3rd vehicle. I made sure to sit far enough out that the driver could see me via her side mirror and rearview mirror. I could hardly be missed as I was wearing a bright yellow jacket. As the driver rounded the turn I stayed about 10 yards back in the same position, just off the right quarter panel of the minivan. I was accelerating standing up at an even pace with the vehicle. The driver slammed on her brakes and makes a quick right hand turn into the very first driveway on the right. Well as I'm on the right hand side of the road and had just finished accelerating, that puts me in a little bit of a bind! I had my hands on the hoods and was just staring at a big ol side of a vehicle in my path. I slid back on the seat, squeezed the brakes turned to the right a little bit, and BAM! smacked right into the rear quarter panel with my left hand. Luckily, I didn't even go down! No pavement action for me. I had shielded the front wheel perfectly and absorbed the impact with my right hand and a little bit of the right shoulder. I had vision of a tire crushing me and my bike, but never went down like that.



After some calm exchanges of words and apologies, the driver admitted she had seen me and it was her fault. No damage done to either party and we parted ways. I continued on my ride and managed to get some good mileage in for the day (~ a little over 4 hours or so) before I the wind took over and I had to take shelter inside.



After that I was a little more cautious than usual in giving vehicles space...



Saturday night was a blowout at Mark and Suzanne's. I had a short lived but good time...(note to self, don't eat so many damn brownies!). There was some good chatter about doing a double highlander, which amounts to about 200 miles and 22,000ft of climbing! We'll see how that one shakes out..



Sunday was recovery from the party, the crash and the end of a recovery week for myself.



Hopefully this week is the last of the deep freeze and can get out to the Giro's and some xtra time!

Ski Time

Finally got some time to update the ol blog. Had quite a busy weekend. Schmoozing with the Fisher Rep, xc skiing saturday and sunday and dinner with Erin's parents Sunday night.



Super psyched to be on board with Gary Fisher again for next season. Had a hell of a time hanging out with the Fisher Rep Friday night. I think Erin did too as she got a little bit into the shots!Found out I'm gonna be rocking a 29er again; this time it'll be a dualie. Fisher Supercaliber with a sweet set of the Bontrager Race X Lite TLR 29. I can't wait to throw the legs over this bad boy!! It's gonna tear sh*t up at the endurance races this coming season. I'm still piloting the paragon, but having thoughts of possibly transforming it into a singlespeed...





Get a good look at er fellas, cause most likely you'll be watching her ride away from you!





Headed down to Hi Tor with the Hollow Crew for some xc skiing saturday morning. I've been thru there a bunch to snag the DEC descent, but never really tooled around. After spending some time there and exploring Saturday under Dave's guidance it's got a ton to offer. The trail book is starting to get quite thick at this point! I think the area is going to come in awesome for some hill training and wet conditions riding on the fireroads.



Conditions were pretty much perfect for a nice, easy going kick and glide. Sun was out and we got off the trails just as they were starting to get sticky.



Overlooking Canandaigua Lake from the South end





So, what button do I push on the camera again?





Your's truly striking the pose





Val Fuels up for the assualt on the downhill





Dave and the pups glide away thru the woods





Dave descends into the gauntlet





The Gauntlet



Sunday was some more skiing; hit the woods behind the house for some time. I chickened out on the ride down in the Hollow as it was a little chilly so early in the morning (10 degrees). Come to find out conditions improved quite a bit throughout the day and overheating was more of a factor than freezing you toes off. Serves me right in the long run. Guess I'll just have to make up for it :)

Only Temporary

Our brief respite from ol' man winter was quite short. A few inches of snow falling overnight has me prepping the skis for the weekend rather than the bikes. Our "heat-wave" brought temps that were in the low 40's on Tuesday and upper 30's with sunshine on Wednesday.



Tuesday I put the tires to the asphalt for the first time since early January, when we had an actual heat wave. It was a good feeling to see the ground move past me on each pedal stroke. The air flowing created by actual movement. Quite invigorating. I plotted my course down thru South Bristol and back; pushing a good hard tempo pace. 2 hours passed and as I was making my way home contemplating putting some more time in, a few drizzles helped ease me into the warmth of being back home. My choice was the right one as it turned into a steady rain.



Wednesday was a good group ride. Casey, Matt, Mark and I met up in Bloomfield. Our intentions were to ride the new GVCC course. We started out heading on the correct route, but made an early turn off in the wrong spot. No big deal, as we all knew where we were and decided to head down and around Bristol Mt.





Churning along the ridge on our way to Mosher Hill







We hit the backside of Mosher hill for our first true climb of the day. Brutal for being one of the first climbs of the season. After struggling up and over the top and around to rt 64 we, confronted a decent headwind heading north. We set to work and got into our usual pacelining session. One great thing about riding so often together is that we work flawless. No gapping on pulls, no accelerations, just precision and execution of the task at hand. I lucked out and managed to be on Hanggi's wheel, which equates to having a mac truck in front of me the whole time. We stopped at the convenience store in South Bristol for some calorie re-supplies.





Casey puts the burn on as we pass Bristol mt.







Slackers! Don't you guys have real jobs!



After refueling we headed back north and onto the GVCC course proper to got back to our recon mission. The course itself is going to be a beast compared to the old Perinton course. It's quite rolling with some steep climbs and sections that are easily going to cause some splits in the groups.



Right now I'm 50/50 if I really want to do anything on the road at all this season. I've raced the GVCC Giro's and the Spring Classic for a few years and they work well to bring the legs up to speed. I'm refocusing completely on the endurance aspect for this season, but we will see what happens. Maybe, I'll throw some road tires on the Paragon and run that during the Giros. I'm sure that will give me a warm welcome from all the pure roadies!



This weekend is psycho-cross take 2. Hopefully the weather sticks and I can get a decent write-up and some picks for you....